


The Doctor’s Been … Thinking

by Es_Aitch



Series: Twelfth Doctor One Shots Series 10 [6]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s10e05 Oxygen, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-01 17:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10926471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Es_Aitch/pseuds/Es_Aitch
Summary: This is all about the introspection from the Doctor's Point of View during "Oxygen".  Spoilers for that episode, obviously.  Second chapter added by request. Nardole and the Doctor continue the conversation.





	1. Chapter 1

There was only one way the Doctor could save Bill. Just one. He winced at the thought, because this was going to be hell. It was probably going to feel like four and a half billion years. He quickly hacked into Bill’s suit and synced it to his own. Then he took his helmet off and put it on Bill. His respiratory bypass would keep his lungs from exploding. For anything else? He really had no defences. It wasn’t until he felt the pressure on his eyes that he knew he was going to be in trouble. Only too late, he closed his eyes to try to protect them. But he knew it was too late. When the airlock was sealed and he lifted his eyelids and found himself still in darkness, his fears were confirmed.

Still. Bill was alive. That was all that mattered. She was alive and she would recover. He was certain of that. He made sure she was in a safe place to recuperate and then the rest of the group headed toward another location. One he couldn’t get to properly without kicking debris. He nearly fell over. Nardole was there to catch him. “Sir, are you okay?”

The Doctor violently shrugged him off. “Oi! Don’t touch me! I’m fine!”

He had turned his head to face Nardole and the shorter man saw the damage that had been done to the Doctor’s eyes. “Doctor, you are many things, but right now? ‘Fine’ is not one of them.”

“I thought I told you a long time ago to leave. Me. _Alone_!”

“You did, but this time, I won’t. At least let me help you find a place to sit.”

“I don’t want or need your help.”

He started to storm off in the direction from which he had heard some voices. He tripped and this time he did fall down. Rather than letting Nardole help him, though, he crawled his way down the hall.

There was nothing that Nardole could do, other than sigh and shake his head.

The Doctor found a bench and told everyone to leave him alone and let him think. There was something he was missing. And maybe now that he couldn’t see, he could find it. Senses were funny like that.

It was a nice lie to tell everyone. It was a nice lie to tell himself. What he wanted to do was have a complete breakdown. But that never helped anyone. Besides, he could do that later. He’d have plenty of time for a pity party once they had returned to Earth. There were lives that needed saving first.

Maybe he could give himself a minute. Just a minute to wallow. No. Not wallow. Adjust. He needed a minute to adjust to missing one of his senses. Too bad he didn’t have his sonic specs with him. They could probably be rigged to at least give him some sense of things around him. Well, they could, if his other sonic wasn’t also destroyed.

Okay. He was blind. He might be able to recover his sight… But, he really had to think about how he was going to save these people. And to be able to focus on that, he had to focus on what other senses still remained. So he closed his eyes and performed the equivalent of a self-diagnosis. Everything else seemed to function properly. Good. There was only one thing for it. He would have to actually turn off his ability to see. He didn’t need it right now anyway. And it would force his other senses to adjust more quickly. But it took time, he had to mentally go in and disconnect his sight.

He was still working on that, when he heard Bill speak his name. There was fear in her tone that she was obviously trying to hide from him. He knew he couldn’t hide this from her; based on how others had reacted, there was visible damage to his eyes. He took a breath and stood. He couldn’t muster the strength to inject as much joy into his voice as he actually felt. He was glad she was awake. And she sounded – fine. Good, even. She hugged him and he could sense the guilt she felt. The sorrow. That was just unacceptable. Well, then he could muster a joke or two. Calm her. Make her think this was business as usual. Tell her jokes. He was glad it had worked. He wished someone could do that for him. He wanted even the little bit of comfort he was trying to offer her. Well, maybe later. That would only distract him from trying to find a way to save everyone else he could.

He still needed to think and there were too many humans around, so he started to walk off again. He kicked something on the floor and it clattered. He heard boots from someone – probably Bill, but hard to say since everyone sounded the same in the boots – start after him. Then he heard Nardole mention not helping. Good. They had all finally learned. Except Bill. Now, he knew she was the one following him. She was the only one he would accept at this point anyway. She clearly wanted to talk and he wasn’t ready for that, not yet. He had to think. So the best way to get rid of her was to tell all the truths: “No TARDIS, no sonic, about ten minutes of oxygen left, and now I’m blind. Can you imagine how unbearable I’m going to be when I pull this off?”

He almost smiled when she revealed that she knew he told jokes to distract her from what was about to kill them. “What else are jokes for?”

He was disappointed when not five minutes later, she hadn’t realised he had told her a joke before she even asked for one. “I will see you soon.”

It was the best he could do. Maybe he shouldn’t have sounded so serious when he said it. Too late now. He only hoped that she would forgive him for sending her through hell. He knew she had forgiven him when she hugged him, even if he hated every moment of it.

He held out a small amount of hope that the tissue regenerator would work. He was nearly disgusted to find himself still in darkness. Well, that was it. Still, he could fake this. He’d had sight for many billions of years. He had done quite all right when he’d lost most of his senses when he had been in the universe of anti-time. Of course, there was the chance that he hadn’t properly turned his vision back on. And trying to do that again wasn’t going to happen right now. He needed a bit of solitude for meditation to accomplish that.

He hadn’t been as grateful for the telepathic link to the TARDIS as he was right now. She knew he couldn’t see and knew that he didn’t want the others to know. She would help him keep up his ruse. For this moment. Since there were strangers around. But she encouraged him to tell his companions soon. He promised her he would. The problem with that promise was they both knew she would hold him to it. Still, he was willing to do anything to keep it a secret awhile longer.

After dropping Abby and Ivan off at the Corporate Office, the TARDIS returned the rest of them to the Doctor’s Office on Earth. Bill and Nardole left him for a bit. Nardole went to check on the vault and Bill went off to one of her classes. Good. Now the Doctor could wallow. He could throw his temper-tantrum. But before he did any of that, he went to the Med Bay and ran some diagnostics. The news was less than encouraging. Maybe he hadn’t turned his vision back on properly.

That was fine. He could deal with that. He made himself comfortable on one of the cots and put himself into a meditation state. He went through to check all of his processes again. Everything was working properly, just as the TARDIS had said. Except his sight. He calmed himself and went through the steps to turn his vision back on. After completing the process he opened his eyes. He was still in darkness. He swallowed hard and asked the TARDIS to run another set of diagnostics. She only reiterated the information that she had provided earlier.

Okay. _Now_ he could wallow. The TARDIS tried to get him to find another way. He refused. So, she did what she could. The most she could do was provide him a space that would be relatively safe for the Doctor to vent his anger. It was a room she had the ability to transform instantaneously. When he was throwing things around, the floor and walls were hard enough to make the objects shatter, as he wanted to hear. When he wanted to beat something up, they became a little softer so that he wouldn’t do any damage to himself. And when, at long last, he had exhausted himself, the entire space transformed into cushions, pillows, and a blanket so he could rest.

He didn’t rest. He wept. It was foolish, really. He was a Time Lord. He knew that he had the knowledge and experience to work around losing practically all of his senses and most of his limbs. Worst case, he would be blind until he regenerated. So why was he weeping and sobbing as if he had just been issued a death sentence?

Loss. It was the same reason why anyone else would cry. Loss. He was so tired of losing all the time. Even when he won. Even when he saved as many people as he could, he still lost. And this time? He paid a price for winning. It was bound to happen eventually. He wept until he had no energy left. And then he fell asleep.

It wasn’t long. Just long enough for him to recuperate from the other effects that he had ignored because the loss of his sight had been his main focus. The TARDIS told him that Bill would be getting out of class soon. He knew she would probably pop by to see him between classes. That had become a bit of a habit of hers. If he wasn’t there and acting normal, she would know something was wrong. He knew she would blame herself, so he could never tell her. He wouldn’t let her experience that level of gilt. Not when he could prevent it.

So, he made his way out of the TARDIS and into his office. In his pocket he found his sonic shades. That was good. They would help. He could at least see where objects were. A bit like bat sonar, really. But there were no details, nothing specific. He didn’t even know if they had enough memory to hold the kind of software patch that would require. That was a worry for another time. In his pocket his hand brushed against his yo-yo. Perfect. There was nothing more casual in the world for him to do than to play with it.

Except that more vision was required to play with it than he thought. Especially when Bill came in and he didn’t hear her because he was overly focused on the yo-yo. He fumbled with it when she asked about complaints working. Still, this was good; he could test his specks and see how much he could interpret. It was a fair amount, as it turned out. He could generally make out her shape and how she moved around the room. But it wasn’t detailed enough. He couldn’t tell what she was wearing or what her facial expressions were. She was just a shape moving around his office. Well, it was better than nothing. He knew she had another class to get to, so he knew she wouldn’t stay long, and he was relieved when she left.

A moment later, he heard the TARDIS door open and the servo units creaking. Nardole had entered his office. He knew what Nardole was going to do. He didn’t want to hear it. Still he couldn’t face the other if he was lounging in his office, so he adjusted his position.

Nardole went straight into it. The Doctor could hear the rage in the other man’s voice. The Doctor warned him, but Nardole had an agenda. The Doctor had given him this job, after all. He knew Nardole was just doing his best to keep him in check, but he wasn’t stopping and the Doctor really didn’t want to have this conversation right now. Finally, Nardole pushed the ‘look at me’ issue. And the Doctor had enough. Nardole wasn’t listening to him. Fine. He’d make him listen. He stood and took off his sonic sunglasses. “I can't look at anything ever again! I'm _still_ blind.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By request: the continued conversation between Nardole and the Doctor. This isn’t where I thought this would go… oops. Also headcanon: unless we get specific dates (I doubt it), I’m saying that ‘present day’ is about 700 years into the 1000 year sentence.
> 
> * * *

Nardole was too angry for compassion. “Well, there you have it, then. This is just what I was saying!”

“Nardole, do you think I don’t know any of that? Do you think I haven’t been thinking about that every moment since we left the mining station? Every moment since the moment I realised I was still blind?”

Nardole crossed his arms. “So. How long before she realises it?”

The Doctor put his shades back on and pursed his lips.

“How. _Long_?”

The Doctor sighed heavily. “She probably already knows.”

“Well, that’s just great, isn’t it!? So she knows you have a weakness, she’s in there and has time to plot and scheme and figure out how to exploit that and use it against you!”

“She was doing that before I was blind, so this doesn’t change anything. Besides, it’s not like that. Not any more.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because of what she said to me…”

“You can’t _trust_ her!”

“You don’t understand us, Nardole, and I don’t expect you to.”

The Doctor sighed heavily again and slumped into his chair again. He took his shades off and rubbed his face with his hand.

Nardole had learned over the years that it was pointless to talk to the Doctor when he was like this, so he left. They both needed a little space. He prepared some tea and then returned to the office. He was actually surprised to see the Doctor still sat in much the same position as he had left him.

He set the tray first on a chair. Then he cleared a space on the desk and poured out the Doctor’s tea. He softly cleared his throat. “Tea cup is about six inches from the edge of the desk on your right. Plate of biscuits is on your left, also about six inches from the edge of the desk.”

The Doctor nodded. A part of him wanted to be angry with Nardole for giving him such instructions, but he just didn’t have the energy for it any longer. While the sonic shades helped him to see general outlines, it was difficult for him to see details, so the instructions did help.

He heard more than saw Nardole sit down. They remained quiet for a few moments, each sipping at their tea. Finally Nardole spoke. “Explain it to me.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You said I don’t understand you two. So… explain it to me.”

The Doctor shook his head. “I also said I don’t expect you to.”

“Yeah. But you could give it a try.” He waited a moment. The Doctor said nothing, but also didn’t get up to leave. Nardole took that as a good sign. “Okay, why did you save her?”

“I have always saved her and I always will. She’s my friend.”

“I get you’ve known each other for a long time, but you’ve been enemies for most of it.”

The Doctor chuckled grimly. He leaned forward, returned the cup to its saucer, and then leaned back in his chair.

“Our deaths are… written in the stars you might say. We are the only ones allowed to kill each other. And it will not happen because someone else says it should.”

“I… Don’t understand.”

“It’s simple: when either of us dies – our last and permanent death, it will be at the hand of the other. It is a promise that transcends regenerations, time, and any other promise we might make. And until that happens, we can lead each other to regeneration or save each other as often as we please. The Order decided it was time for Missy to die. I disagreed.”

Nardole frowned. “That’s… not what friendship is.”

The Doctor quirked his lips. “Isn’t it? We are there for each other, we save each other when we can and we’re the cause of each other’s demise when we can’t. The fact that she’s interested in dominion and I’m interested in protecting doesn’t matter. It only means our paths cross more often.”

Nardole was still confused. “Okay, so this time, you said you could trust her because of something she said to you…”

“That is between us.”

“Seven hundred years in, I think I’ve earned something.”

The Doctor relented. “She asked me to teach her how to be good.”

“I’m sure she’s asked that before. What made it different this time?”

“You did.”

“Me? How does that work?”

“ _Extremis_.”

Nardole was still confused and then he remembered he had to say something. “You’re rubbish at explaining things.”

The Doctor allowed a faint smile to appear. “This is news how?” He paused for a moment before he continued. “You appeared right after she asked that. You read from River’s Diary. It was a particular passage that she couldn’t have written until after our bond had been well established. Because she used the phrase ‘in extremis’. That entire passage was never how I would describe myself to others. But it is my code.”

Nardole started to understand. “And your code is the way you live your promise. And your promise is your name.”

The Doctor nodded once, slowly. Nardole continued. “So how does that fit with Missy?”

The Doctor shrugged. “She asked me to teach her how to be good. So I told her: ‘Without hope. Without witness. Without reward.’”

“Because that is the only time that goodness is truly good. In ‘extremis’.”

“No.”

Nardole was confused again. “No?”

“Not just ‘extremis’. It’s Latin. ‘ _In_ extremis.**’ While today people often use them interchangeably, they’re not really. There’s a difference between a word being used an adjective like ‘extreme’ and a word being an noun like ‘end.’ In this case, I meant it as a noun, not as an adjective.”

Nardole didn’t really understand and the Doctor could tell this much by the man’s silence, so he continued. “There are extreme places, people, or things. That is extreme used as an adjective, or ‘extremis’. Then there is something like ‘point of death’ or ‘standing on the edge of a cliff’. Those are specific times and places. Or nouns. ‘In extremis’.”

“Oh I see. So Missy, facing her death was ‘ _in_ extremis.’”

The Doctor nodded. “So I started to teach her. She was a quick learner. But I couldn’t tell straight off if she was serious or not. So when she told me she was my friend, I told her it didn’t matter. And then she said my words back to me. I knew she understood, so it made it easier to save her… well, as much as I could.”

Nardole nodded. “That’s why you’ll never really treat her as a prisoner.”

The Doctor shrugged. “Being stuck in that vault is punishment enough. There’s no reason to make it a torture chamber.”

He remembered his time in the Confession Dial all too well. For a renegade Time Lord to be trapped anywhere, without control of his or her own comings and goings, was torture enough.

“You love her.”

“We’ve known each other practically all of our lives through all of our regenerations. At this point, what we have isn’t about love the way most people define it. It….” His expression went blank for a moment as a vague memory tried to force itself to the surface. The expression is gone, but the words surface. “It’s older than most civilisations on Earth and infinitely more complex.”

“So it’s not love the way humans define it.”

“Little about Time Lords is how humans define it.”

Nardole nodded. It was time to bring things back to the original topic. “Your shades. You’re not just wearing them to hide that you can’t make direct eye contact. How much information do they tell you?”

“Not as much as I’d like, but that will improve with time. It takes a bit for the psychic link to assert itself in this way.”

The Doctor leaned forward again, this time he retrieved a biscuit when he picked up his mug. Nardole quietly sipped his own tea for a moment or two. “I’m sorry I shouted earlier…”

The Doctor waved the apology away. “You were doing your job. Both of them, really. I just… I needed more time first.”

Nardole nodded. “So, are you ready now?”

“I thought that was clear.” He paused, tilting his head slightly as he thought. “Ready for what?”

Nardole couldn’t help but smile. The Doctor was a smart cookie. Far smarter than River could have ever hoped to have been. “Ready for me to help you. I will help you keep up your ruse from everyone for as long as I can. If for no other reason than to help you keep your oath.”

The Doctor nodded. “For that, I am ready. And we’ll start with grading.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **In Latin ‘in’ is pronounced ‘een’, which is how the Doctor says it here. Also, apologies to true Latinist out there, most of my Latin is ‘Church Latin’, soooooo my ‘Doctor teaches Latin’ bit might be a little off compared to true Latin.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t normally do author notes, but I felt it was important for this fic. I majored in Music in undergrad. In my junior year, I got a very serious sinus infection and I (and doctors) thought I was going deaf. (Which, hello, music major – cue ALL THE PANIC!) Luckily, I didn’t lose all of my hearing (or any noticeable amount) but that experience has stayed with me my entire life. It has formed how I approach a lot of things most people never even think about. When I saw “Oxygen”, it made all of those old feelings bubble up. I needed to process them. So you get this. (Sorry-ish). I thought about writing a fic continuing the conversation between Nardole and the Doctor – and I MIGHT, depending on where the next episode picks up.


End file.
